Author Topic: Need some help and ideas (Read 348 times)

Hajo · « **on:** December 17, 2004, 05:10:52 PM »

Background:

My lady friend is a Hospice Nurse......she takes care of terminal patients at their homes. She's an Angel. She quite frequently has crying spells over some of her patients......she's just a wonderful person. And by the way she is from Great Britain and is now a citizen of the US...she's been here 30 years. We've known one another that long.

One of her patients is ill with terminal bladder cancer. He is 52 years old and while Em ( ladyfriend) was visiting he commented how much he likes flight sims. He has a gaming system ( I don't know which one) and was thrilled that he had gotten a new flight game. She informed him of my AH Hobby....he was enthralled at the story. His eyes lit up so to speak.

Well..he has no PC. However we found a PC that the Valley Hospice Service was willing to give us. My questions follow. This is the first place I thought of to get ideas from. This is a great community with a wealth of knowledge. I need some now.

Ok....PC is a pentium 266.....don't know how much ram yet. I'm getting it tomorrow. I have a spare F16 Combat Stick (Janes)
It's OS is windows 95.....that I can upgrade to 98 or win2K Pro.
What I'm thinking is this. I think he might be disheartened to fly AH online....after all the best of the best are here....and with his condition I don't know how much time he'll be able to spend playing online. Also the PC has a modem and a network card.
Don't know the speed of the modem. But I think he'd enjoy flying a boxed combat Sim since at least a cable or DSL line is something that most of us have...and senseless for him to invest in.

With the above system no doubt I'll need to install a sound card.
It was a Business PC used by the Hospice Services. Now...with Win 95 or 98.....I'm thinking I can get a Riva TNT Pro somewhere, or something similar...something a PC with limited resources can run. Also......what flight sim (boxed) will be able to run with those resources? I'm thinking an older flight sim.....where can I find one? I'd like to get this done as quickly as possible. I'd upgrade the mobo cpu and ram....but I don't know if that would be feasible. It's probably a Dell Compaq or HP, something along that line anyway...so finding a mobo and power supply will take some time, and with the way my work schedule is I would like to get this done as quickly as possible....time is something I'm short of.

Any help with these questions would be appreciated. If you could, point me in the right direction. We'd like to put a smile on his face.

By the way...we aren't looking for any donations.....just where on the web we might look to find an older vid card and boxed sim.

Thanks

LtPillur · « **Reply #1 on:** December 17, 2004, 05:30:26 PM »

If you need a spare $10 let me know. Maybe we can get him a new system. My wife is a social Worker and for a while was working with kids. For a long while all I wanted to do was by them food and presents. Sadly I could do neither. My e-mail works.
Peace
Pillur

Hajo · « **Reply #2 on:** December 17, 2004, 05:36:04 PM »

LtPillur thanks for the offer. My Ladyfriend and I will take care of any expenses. Any ideas on where I might find older vid cards and boxed sims would be of great help.

Again...Thank You

LtPillur · « **Reply #3 on:** December 17, 2004, 06:35:39 PM »

Well my offer still stands. I'm not a great computer person. That said E-Bay might be a good place to start. I've seen older versions of MS Flight sim and IL-2 at decent prices. When I had to change vid cards to use AH2 I bought one new for $50. I'm sure you can beat that on E-Bay as well. In any event Good Luck!!
Peace
Pillur

Roscoroo · « **Reply #4 on:** December 17, 2004, 06:53:26 PM »

PC is a pentium 266.....don't know how much ram yet. I'm getting it tomorrow. I have a spare F16 Combat Stick (Janes)
It's OS is windows 95.....that I can upgrade to 98 or win2K Pro.
What I'm thinking is this. I think he might be disheartened to fly AH online....after all the best of the best are here....and with his condition I don't know how much time he'll be able to spend playing online. Also the PC has a modem and a network card.

EEEEEEK ... Man I honor your attempt at setting him up in a pc to enjoy ,But that 266 slot pent 2 isnt much to work with ...
Ive got the sister to it in an IBM model sitting behind me .. (I ussually donate these pc's to a needy family ,, but im not shure cause its SLO..................OW)
I try to at least give away the 450mhz stuff as for those can still do basic 's and some games.

now if we could pool some of our old gamming parts we could set him up .

1st go check and see if you have a "Freecycle" type forum/website
We have one here in Seattle and thats were they give away alot of free stuff . ..

Also check ebay ... theres some great deals there also . if it has an agp slot there 's lots of old gf 2 cards that can be aquired for pennys or close to .

i still have fighter ace 2.5 on cd, it has simple training and a few missions on it . (i'll set it up for you to DL if ya want )
I think it should play on it .

Hajo · « **Reply #5 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:14:37 PM »

W00T! I found copies of AW3 and AW2 on discs I have from Gamestorm. Think one or both might work on that Pent266.

Once I see what's inside the box and get the system specs...should know more.

Thanks for the help gents...keep it coming!

Seeker · « **Reply #6 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:21:09 PM »

Win98 would be a good upgrade. At that age; RAM will be cheap; but hard to find. You can forget about WinXP; and while it'd run Millenium; please don't bother.

A 266 won't cope with IL-2.

On the other hand; it'll fly Red Baron II; European Airwar and Air Warrior just fine.

All three can be flown online head to head; Red Baron still has multiplayer servers up.

Additionaly; I believe it'd cope with versions 2.XX of Warbirds; which had; I believe an offline element; and there's still a very lively version 2 community (ask Baroda

)

OTOH; if you're up to it; it'd make a good Linux box; and there are Linux flight sims around.

Hajo: I'd imagine those Gamestorm disks have the online only front end for AW; with no offline element. However; the full CD version of AW can be found on the 'net.

KurtVW · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:30:04 PM »

That machine might be able to run Combat Flight sim 2. But only with the upgraded video card... ITs a tough call.

CFS2 can sometimes be found used at EBGames if you have one near you... They often have old used games.... If not CFS2, then perhaps CFS1. I hated CFS1 though.

I agree with the posts above, thats almost a doorstop you're working with... Its really a shot in the dark... For the price of the upgrades you may be able to get into a P3 600mhz or so... Then maybe you can get something running on it.

MANDO · « **Reply #8 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:33:57 PM »

Big for you Hajo.

With that system you will be able to run any of the Janes flight sims (jets and Janes WW2 Fighters). You can also try European Air War and Fighter Squadron and even Falcon 3.0. All of them allow single or multiplayer.

If you need them urgently, you may try to download them using eDonkey or eMule. Dont try to locate any of them in shops.

Darkish · « **Reply #9 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:47:19 PM »

The voodoo 3 PCI card (3dfx) may be the best gfx card for that PII - they sometimes pop up on e-bay. If so Red Baron 3D would run well on it. DID's Eurofighter and F22 also good for jet age sims - oooh, and I think they also did Apache Longbow and Hind (still hasn't been bettered) for the rotary fans.

Forgot to add, would be more than happy to send these over the pond to you.

38ruk · « **Reply #10 on:** December 17, 2004, 10:03:37 PM »

Hajo i have my old AW3 boxed cd, has the offline missions that can be played stand alone. i dont have the manual or anything else, i can burn it and send the original if you would like.

~~38Maw~~